Senate Democrats: We should probably get started on this minimum-wage push, huh?

posted at 6:01 pm on November 7, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

Democrats have had plans in the works to make a minimum-wage increase a major issue ahead of the 2014 midterms, and now that ObamaCare is floundering so spectacularly and the prospects for centering their campaigns around it are wearing thinner by the day, they definitely need to get the wheels in motion on a bright-and-shiny new initiative they can determinedly tout to their perturbed constituents.

During his State of the Union address early this year, President Obama (in what seemed like an almost non-sequitur at the time) brought up the idea of raising the national minimum wage to $9/hour and indexing it to inflation rates, but certain Congressional Democrats want to go even further with a hike to $10.10/hour, and they’re getting ready to introduce the relevant bills to get things rolling. Via The Hill:

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is spearheading the push to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, but not all Democrats are yet on board. …

Harkin said Wednesday he is not certain whether all 55 members of the Democratic caucus would back his proposal, which would also raise the minimum rate in jobs that rely on tips to 70 percent of the standard minimum wage.

“There are different views on proceeding to it, as an amendment, as a direct bill, how do you do it,” he said. “That’s what we’ve got to figure out.”

“There are some who may want to add something to it, put something else on it, which other people would not want,” he said. “I think people deserve a clean-cut bill. Raise the minimum wage.”

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif), the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, is the House sponsor of the measure.

Their bill would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015 in three increases of 95 cents.

Back in February, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi aptly hinted at the Democrats’ tactical plans for this specifically-resurrected-to-avoid-more-pressing-issues issue: “Just keep it simple. We want to raise the minimum wage, and you don’t. Why not?” I.e., that old fallback of the Democratic playbook: Republicans must really hate poor people, because that is literally the only possible explanation they could have for being opposed to such a simple, zero-repercussions gesture.

Democrats have had plans in the works to make a minimum-wage increase a major issue ahead of the 2014 midterms, and now that ObamaCare is floundering so spectacularly and the prospects for centering their campaigns around it are wearing thinner by the day, they definitely need to get the wheels in motion on a bright-and-shiny new initiative they can determinedly tout to their perturbed constituents.

Their bill would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015 in three increases of 95 cents.

$10.10? Come on. Others in the labor movement are pushing for $15 an hour — the bare minimum wage needed to pay for their Obamacare premiums.

Does it ever occur to these genius politicians that hikes in the minimum wage just get passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices for goods and services — the same goods and services that these minimum wage workers have to buy?

What is the point of “helping” minimum wage workers get a few hundred dollars more a week in their paychecks if the cost of everything they buy with that paycheck goes up?

Obama just apologized for people losing their coverage. These 2014 Dem candidates must have been cra-ping their pants for the lying liar to actually apologize. I call it what it is the old bait n switch.

Republicans should focus on a simple, cohesive response to the “hate the poor” attacks. Look back across the stage at the dimocrat primping and ask, “Why only $10.10? If you’ll be able to do this with only Democrat votes anyhow, why not $20 per hour? Or $30?”

Then turn to the audience and say, “The reason my opponent can’t answer that is that he knows that all the minimum wage has ever accomplished is to immediately eliminate the jobs that are not worth that amount. He can primp and preen about raising it to $10.10 because he knows that in the economic wasteland that Obama’s created nobody’s going to be able to specifically link a few million more lost jobs to this proposal. But if they raised it to $30 an hour the exact same effect — only amplified — would occur. And at that point the millions of unemployed Americans who are victims of this misguided policy would see exactly who was to blame for their plight.”

Obama just apologized for people losing their coverage. These 2014 Dem candidates must have been cra-ping their pants for the lying liar to actually apologize. I call it what it is the old bait n switch.

Suppose that each of these workers works an average of 1500 hours per year. This mean that the businesses who hire all these workers have to pay an extra 15.4 billion dollars a year if the minimum wage is increased to $ 10.1 per hour…

Most of the businesses who hire minimum wage employees make their profit mainly because they pay the minimum wages… This 15.4 billion dollars a year increase in wages is going to lead to firing a lot of workers or increasing the price of the products on the customers or combination of these two measures or totally bankrupting many businesses…

Not to defend Graham (can’t stand him), but it was the SCOTUS that made abortion a federal matter, by declaring in Roe v. Wade that it was a woman’s constitutional right.

Also, as I understand it, most European states already restrict or ban elective abortions after 20 weeks, so perhaps Graham (like any good RINO) is just trying to push U.S. law forward, in the tradition of the more enlightened and progressive European states. (No liberal could possibly object to that, right?)

The House needs to just shelve everything the Senate passes from now until the end of Obama’s term unless we take back the Senate.

jawkneemusic on November 7, 2013 at 6:08 PM

This. As long as we’re stuck with him, Boehner needs to make himself the new Most Important Man in Congress™ and nothing Obama or Reid want happens without his say-so. And then Boehner just needs to shut up.

Get an articulate conservative spokesman out front to explain that minimum wage hikes, amnesty bills, and such are all really very nice, but the Obamacare disaster is such overwhelming, all-engulfing, destroying-everything debacle that, really, getting rid of it HAS to be the sole duty and focus of Congress until that’s done.

OT: President Obama said Thursday that he is “sorry” that some Americans are losing their current health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, despite his promise that no one would have to give up a health plan they liked.
“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,” he told NBC News in an exclusive interview at the White House.
“We’ve got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this.”
For more from President Obama’s interview with Chuck Todd tune in to NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams at 6:30 pm ET.
Obama’s comments come 10 days after NBC News’ Lisa Myers reported that the administration has known since the summer of 2010 that millions of Americans could lose their insurance under the law. Obama has made repeated assurances that “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan” with Obamacare.

That minimum wage increases are among the most superficially simple yet intellectually cheap populist faux-giveaways that in the long run actually harm the people they were ostensibly meant to help the most, and are in fact wildly counterproductive to the goal of encouraging and economic growth and employment… will not be mentioned, and indeed vehemently avoided. Get excited.

Yeah, sure. And the GOP will respond with carefully reasoned arguments about, oh, “Believe in America.”

On Special Report, they’re discussing Obama’s trip to New Orleans tomorrow. He’s flying on Airforce One with the LA Dem senator (Landrieu), but she’s making a longstanding appearance and won’t be at Obama’s event. Dr. K said that she’ll be busy rearranging her closets.

Well, one advantage of increasing the minimum wage will be that more small businesses and companies hire fewer workers, which may hold more businesses under the 50-employee minimum that triggers the Obamacare employer mandate. Ergo, reduce the number of business complaining about the employer mandate when the extension expires, smaller election backlash against the Dems. Or something.

Union wages are tied to the minimum wage. Jack it up by 30-50%, and you’ve given Union employees a corresponding increase. This is all one ever needs to know about why Dems push wage increases for the “working poor”. It gives the working wealthy, Unions, a raise.

Let me get this straight. House Republicans pass bill after bill after bill that die in the Senate, and the Senate never has to defend their actions (or inactions). But the Senate passes “Immigration Reform”, Gay Discrimination (“Lawsuitpalooza”), and possibly minimum wage increase (job killer) bills, and the House has to curl in the fetal position?